Elementary my dear Edward
by The Redjay
Summary: Title: Elementary, my dear Edward  Word count: 2048  Rating: PG-13  Fandom: Batman: Arkham Asylum  Pairings: n/a  Characters  mentioned : The Riddler  Warnings: n/a  Synopsis: In which someone may or may not be dead, and a hat is lost.


He had to be dreaming. That was the only logical excuse, wasn't it, and didn't his very existence thrive on knowledge and riddles and logical excuses? No, excuse wasn't the right word, it wasn't an excuse it was a fact. He was walking, thinking, deciding whether or not to believe his own eyes and there was no reason to believe that he could actually be… Dead.

Edward Nigma stood up. The Riddler. A man whose life was ruled by a compulsion to riddle, and to answer riddles, and whose metaphorical doom was sealed on a regular occasion by the same mantra that kept him, by his own standards if that of few others, sane. In and out of Arkham Asylum like a yoyo, and brilliant enough to admit that sometimes, it was a good thing. Sometimes he couldn't help himself. And he _was_ brilliant; even The Batman, just as much a public menace as he or The Joker was, admitted that no one knew riddles like The Riddler, no one knew Gotham City like The Riddler. But even his brilliant mind sometimes came up against a conundrum that required just a little bit more thought, and he could tell that this particular conundrum was a very good example.

"Question: Is this death?"

Extending his cane off to one side and leaning on it with the small of his hand, hand clasped around the smooth wooden eroteme hook at the top, he crossed one ankle over the other and gave his surroundings a proper scan. From the moment he'd stepped off of the kerb, and that motorcyclist had rounded the corner towards him in a flash, he couldn't shake the feeling that something didn't feel right, and that something was probably the fact that no one was being shot at, mugged or arrested. And they had been only seconds ago. Which was, in short, quite unlike Gotham. In fact, he was sure that was what didn't feel right. Edward frowned – what use was a Riddler who couldn't answer his own riddles?

"Hey, can you-!" Edward stopped with a start, looking down at himself with a startled gasp as a woman dressed in what was clearly her Sunday best for a business meeting walked right towards him, and then through him. He patted his green pinstripe suit down, half expecting his own hands to fall through his torso, then adjusted his tie and picked up his cane haughtily, with an obvious snort of disdain intended to get her attention. The woman just continued on, not even stopping to see if he was alright, just like the motorcyclist was now half way down the street. The Riddler cleared his throat, rubbing the back of his neck, and then frowned.

Damn. That wasn't it, he couldn't be dead and his riddle wasn't worth answering now! Composing himself, Edward turned on his heels and set back the way he had came. Cane over his shoulder almost comically, it seemed like an idea to head home. If he had been hit by the motorcycle, then logic dictated he should have concussion… In fact, logically speaking it was more likely that he had a concussion than it was that he was dead. But like any riddle, the most obvious answer could never be the right one. That couldn't be it. By the same standards, he couldn't be dead either, surely, and he still hadn't answered his first riddle – even if it was unimportant he couldn't just let it drop. "Answer: …"

The Riddler He trailed off, as he turned onto the homeward stretch towards his apartment, the little street where the Waynes had been famously murdered years ago. He must have been lost in his thoughts, he decided with a frown, to have arrived home via journey that usually took him twenty minutes longer. This conundrum had more and more turns by the second. And Edward liked a challenge. But he abandoned answering his riddles for the time it would take to reach his door, and his ridiculously complicated security system. He would do well to keep an open eye and an open mind in Crime Alley, lest you lost an eye, or a mind. Or your life.

"Question: What crime do you get away with if you commit it, but punished if you are caught? Answer: Suicide."

"Pretty crazy talking to yourself. Someone might think you were The Riddler or someone."

Cane outstretched like the weapon it could so easily be, The Riddler spun on one heel to face the man who had managed to creep up on him, and balked. Unless his eyes were deceiving him, his follower was none other than… Himself? Quickly, he checked his pulse. He hadn't fallen prey to fear toxin again somewhere along the way, had he? He remembered the last time he'd been intoxicated on that particular poison, and it wasn't a pretty memory, in fact, it was one he didn't like to even acknowledge. Selena Kyle had turned all of his best laid plans on their heads in one fell swoop and drugged him to boot, and it didn't do for a man with a fear of both himself and of failure to hallucinate on a plane from Rome to Gotham.

The Edward doppelganger continued. "Question: Is this death? Answer: Do you feel dead?"

"You can't answer a riddle with a question. That's a riddle wrapped up in an enigma." The real Edward laughed. He never grew tired of that one. But if someone was going to go to the trouble of impersonating him, then he might as well be put to the test. "Riddle: Forever falling, but feeling no pain. Sometimes feared, but wanted by many. Once it comes down, it never goes up again. What is it?"

"Answer: Rain." No sooner had his doppelganger answered the riddle than the heavens parted, and it began to rain. Edward, looking up in disbelief at the sudden change in the weather, was immediately more distressed by the fact that his head was getting wet.

"My hat. Where's my hat?" Of course! He must have lost it when the motorbike had hit him like a bat out of hell. That was it. The wordsmith grinned, the riddle all coming to place. Oh, he must've been hit on the head. All of this, the lack of a corporeal body, the look-a-likes, the change in the mood of the most dangerous city in America, he must have been imagining it all. Even he couldn't think up a better answer.

"You're not imagining it."

The Riddler, the real one, raised an eyebrow, and dropped his cane from the double's neck, adjusting his tie again and raising an eyebrow from his head (devoid of trademark bowler hat). "Oh. Question: Why not?"

"Elementary, my dear Edward. You're dead."

"Because…?" The Riddler scowled. He didn't like to be preached to, be it at the lips of The Batman, the ridiculous Doctor Penny Young who seemed as determined to fix him as she was exasperated by him (the latter feeling was mutual) or lookalikes in some bizarre parody of Gotham.

"Edward," began the lookalike; the real Edward raised another eyebrow. Was he really _that _patronizing? He supposed he was. "First of all you were hit by a motorbike. Second of all, a woman had just walked through you, and lastly you are in a world that resembles in Gotham's case a Utopia. The evidence outweighs your cynicism."

He thought about the statement. No, the double wasn't quite the same as him, he spoke differently. Which made The Riddler less willing to accept what he was being told. He put the cane in front of him and cupped both hands on the top, leaning on the cane and propping his chin up on the cane. Now, this in itself was a good point; he may seem not to be corporeal but then so was his cane, so were his clothes.

"I accept your point as sound in principle, but we also need to take into account that with a riddle the most obvious answer is rarely the correct one, and this is indeed an enigma of the highest calibre. Although I agree with what you've said so far, with the exception of your broad comment on my life, I also believe that you're forgetting that without more information we cannot begin to find the solution to the conundrum." Yes. He was that patronizing.

"What more proof do you need?"

"Pearly Gates. A Grim Reaper. Personally I was never one to believe in a life after death but taking into account that Heaven is meant to be perfection, well, I'm not really seeing it. You're here bothering me, for a starter." The other Edward pouted; the real one gave a smug start. "And you are not behaving like me at all. Question: Who are you?"

"I – I!"

"Question: What are you?"

The second Riddler wasn't able to get a word in edgeways, but instead chose to step further and further back as the real Riddler came closer and closer, brandishing his cane under one arm and triumphantly threatening this other self. Angrily, even. His eyes were wide and a grin was on his face, one reserved for the realization that he had managed to solve a particularly difficult riddle. But of course he had. Who was he?

"Question: Where are you?"

By now, they were only an inch apart, and when The Riddler next opened his mouth to speak it was to find that he had, being non corporeal, walking right through his doppelganger. He spun around on his heels, green pinstriped tailcoats flying in a glamorous arch, and was – for not the first time – speechless. His other self was gone.

"Answer: That's what I thought."

After a few more minutes of nothing, Edward's smug grin turned into a scowl. Now what? He'd asserted, he decided rightly, that he wasn't dead, but that left the small matter of figuring out what he was. If the highly irritating mimic was to be believed, he had been knocked down by a motorbike, and so the most likely answer was hallucination. Determined to make the most of hallucination, he turned on his tail yet again and headed back out to the tamed streets, money and women and if he followed suit Batman at his fingertips. If he could just take off that mask…! It wasn't an obsession, no, Edward just felt a pressing responsibility to expose him. Rubbing his hands in caricature glee, he put his cane before him and crossed the street and –

Opened his eyes. Blinking in confusion, The Riddler took one look at the reddish sky in front of his eyes and sat up, sprawled unceremoniously over the pavement with a woman leaning over him, clearly having made some uneducated attempt to wake him up. Of the motorcyclist, there was no sign.

"What the-?"

"Are you alright, Sir?"

"Sir? I'm the goddamn Riddler." Snapped Edward, grabbing at where his cane should be and realizing that his hat was still missing.

As he pulled himself to his feet with the aid of his cane, people seemed determined to get in his way and try and help him, catching him by the elbow, the forearm, trying to take his cane for him. Snorting disdainfully he brushed himself down, massaged a nasty bump on the back of the head, and gave the woman who had called him 'Sir' such a poisonous look that she staggered back in obvious alarm. People, it seemed, were beginning to slowly realize that he was in fact 'the goddamn Riddler'.

"Question: What happened?"

After a moment's pause, the woman who had been trying to wake him answered, while the rest of the crowds uncharacteristically dissipated. "It was a h-hit and run, Si – Mr. Riddler." Her eyes were wide. "You passed out. Someone s-stole your hat."

"Good answer." The Riddler growled, offering no thanks and heading off back in the direction of home, half expecting to find his trademark bowler hat for sale on the internet by the six o'clock. Who the hell would want to steal his hat was beyond even him. Finally, however, he had an answer to his riddle. Chastising himself he pulled his eroteme can closer. "Answer: Of course it's not death..."


End file.
